I wasn't quite sure where to put this article because it's just a hobby, but one reason I take the type of photos I do.
I've always been keen to do jigsaws. Do others here do jigsaws?

Most of my life I did actual jigsaws but not the usual variety. I preferred jigsaws of oddly shaped or intricate pictures & pieces.
Then with the advent of my first proper computer a Dell with Win96 (my actual first was a Vic 20 followed by a Commodore 64!), I soon got my first digital jigsaw software.
Every updated operating system has enabled me to have a more powerful jigsaw software.
Currently I have 2:- Eureka Jigsaw Mania & Spin Top Game Jigsaw Platinum. Each has it's pros & cons.
One reason I spend time doing jigsaws is that as we age we have to work harder to keep the brain agile.
This is one way I do that. I take beautiful & intricate photos to make make very complex jigsaws.

Here's the one I'm currently doing:- 4332 extra large pieces, if made into a real jigsaw it would be aprox 2m wide. I can only see a small part of it on my extra wide laptop pc screen at any one time. It is so big it has stretched the jigsaw software to full capacity. Probably what I need now is a monitor like a TV screen but that is waaaay down the need/wants list. Because of the size of this picture, all the pieces are stacked in a single row around the edge in some places 50 deep. I've been at it for around 12.5hrs over 10days so far.

Here is a screen print of the area I am working on now. Below that is a photo of the subject. When it's such a complex jigsaw I always have the transparent preview image there otherwise it would be impossible to do these larger puzzles. Across the bottom of the screen print you will see some stats:- time taken so far; total number of pieces; % of pieces placed so far; & the really big one, Piece Rotation Disabled! My goodness, I don't mind a complex jigsaw, but to add in piece rotation on a jigsaw like this would just be a self defeating senile act!

Yes Stevo, the memory was a cassette in a little black box.
Do you also remember that the monitor was the TV screen?
I don't understand why they went away from that idea to the small monitors that IBM came out with later.

Some pieces seem to defy placement even when they seem to have a nice bit of picture on them.
It's easy enough to tell which side of the tree it belongs because the branches lean this way or that & the main tree is in very sharp focus while the smaller tree on the right is slightly out of focus so even when the colour is identical, the focus tells me which tree it belongs to.

One thing that I noticed when I got my first laptop several years ago that I never noticed on my big free standing monitor that went with my desk top pc was that if you take a piece with a certain colour & move it from the bottom of the screen to the top, it will change colour! I haven't been able to learn exactly why that happens but I think it has something to do with the way the crystals that form the screen are arranged so that when we look at the middle of the screen all the parts of the picture we are seeing are showing the 'correct' colours & at the right angle & alignment. I'm actually not making much sense am I! In my head I know what I mean but it is hard to put it into words when I don't know the technical terms to explain it.

Anyway it makes locating pieces by colour rather hard. So, many pieces can all look the same colour when in a row across the bottom of the screen but if I pick one & move it up the screen it will change colour. Another way that happens is when the screen is pushed back to its furthest extent. Most people will use their laptop screen in a rather upright position, but if you push it right back, the colours on the screen will become far more intense & often go to negatives if you get down & look at from a very low angle.

When I'm dealing with apparently black pieces for example, I do that as the real colour shows then so I can tell brown from black & those with light areas in them become evident. Same with many similar colours like the sky in this jigsaw.

Well I'm at the 39% point & 34hrs24mins of work! Along the right hand bottom of the photo you can see the stats.
the overlay chart shows where the pieces have been placed.
The hard part is still to come with the black along the bottom third.

My Mother asked me why I 'put myself through that'! She couldn't see the point in doing a hard jigsaw.

Stevo life has been unreal for me in a not so good way lately & jig saws have been the last thing on my mind.
So it's at the 44% done stage with the hardest parts yet to do.
but thanks for thinking of me.